It wasn’t so much a boast as it was matter of fact, with Conor McGregor knowing the best way for him to beat Floyd Mayweather on Aug. 26 is with his superior punching power.

And that advantage, no matter how lonesome it is, was given a boost when the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) agreed Wednesday to requests from both fighters and allowed them use eight-ounce gloves instead of the 10-ounce gloves normally used for their weight class.

“I believe now that the gloves are eight ounces, I don’t believe he makes it out of the second round,” McGregor said on a conference call Wednesday night. “Part of me is hoping maybe he can last so I can [deal with] the word of, ‘Oh, he’s a lucky [puncher],’ and that sort of thing, which I’ve been labeled with before. Part of me kind of wants to show some skill and dismantle him that way, but I do not see him absorbing the blows in the first two rounds.

“But we are ready for absolutely every scenario. We’re ready to go to war for the full 12 rounds, and I’m ready to put him away in the first 10 seconds. So that’s where my heads at.”

Coming out of UFC, McGregor is used to fighting with four-ounce gloves that are fingerless and have very little padding. Of course, he’s also used to being able to kick and grapple. There is the flip side of this decision, as well, with Mayweather having the faster hands and the smaller gloves allowing him to take advantage of that aspect.

“I fight in four-ounce gloves, fingerless gloves, with the knuckles barely covered is what I’m used to,” McGregor said. “It benefits both in certain ways. So I’m very happy with it.”

It also happens that Mayweather has fought 46 of his 49 professional fights with eight-ounce gloves, something that McGregor hardly cared about.

“That doesn’t bother me,” McGregor said. “How often he’s worn the gloves, that didn’t factor in at all. I didn’t even know that. I do not care about his record and I do not care about his achievements. Every fight is on a fight-by-fight basis. That’s the way we approach it.”

The NSAC also decided the in-ring referee would be Robert Byrd, and the three judges would be a mix of international veterans: Burt Clements, Dave Moratti and Guido Cavalleri. They were approved by both fighters, and McGregor said he was “very happy with how the Nevada State Athletic Commission handled it.”

There are some aspects that McGregor hasn’t liked, and that includes when Mayweather brought race into the discussion during an interview with a boxing magazine.

“For me, this is athlete versus athlete,” McGregor said. “I was upset that Floyd tried to bring this in. It was a weak move on his part when he knows and his people truly know that it’s not from me. I’m not saying there’s not people on both sides that have this mindset, where it’s black versus white and this sort of thing. But it’s certainly something I do not condone.”

McGregor, who has never fought a professional boxing match, is also being motivated by his critics who are hardly giving him a chance against one of the best pound-for-pound boxers of all time.

“It’s certainly motivating,” McGregor said. “The disrespect and disregard for my skill set, it’s like, I look at people some many times and their mind is closed. They have a closed mind to how things can be done. It’s a set way and that’s the only way.”